What Is It Like To Be A Startup Founder?

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Balaji Viswanathan, Founder Zingfin.com

Founding a startup is the closest way a man can feel what it is like to be a mother. You cannot easily assign economic value to that feeling of creation.

It all starts with the right mate. First, you need to find the right partner with whom you will have your kid. While it is possible to raise the kid as a single parent, it is also excruciatingly hard.

The development

The period before the launch is one of the most painful periods of your life. You forget that nights are there for sleep, and you cannot sleep easily. What if the baby is not perfect?What if it doesn't listen to you? You are constantly reading "parenting guides" & dreaming about your creation and how you want to raise your "baby." You are prepared to forget a few years of your life, as you will be completely caught in one thing.

Then the launch day comes, and it is the worst day of your life. It is excruciatingly painful. And then it happens - you bring a beautiful new creation to the world that hopefully will solve the world's problems. On the surface, the thing looks ugly, flaky, and awkward. But, in your eyes that is the most beautiful thing. You think one day it will grow up to be something really important. It makes you cry.

The well-wishers all come and congratulate you and how you have passed the hardest part of your life. You start wiping out your tears. You know that the slog has just now begun.

The growth

Just when you thought your sleepless nights have ended, you start realizing that even the remaining sleep is now gone. The server crashes, gets hacked, or something else happens with your baby. You wake up in the middle of the night and start fixing it. At the end of it, you don't feel any resentment that you have lost your sleep, just sheer tiredness and a sense of mild satisfaction.

While monetary aspects are not important, you are constantly trying to plot ways to make your baby really worthy for all the stakeholders involved. You want this baby to be something you can proudly call upon. While you are jealously guarding your baby, you are also getting the kid a lot of good company. The team grows bigger.

The baby slowly grows up, and you start realizing that it no longer listens to some of your commands. You realize that you cannot keep micromanaging, and you let the kid evolve with a life of its own. You still act like the guide and the mentor, but you stay away from micromanaging.

The exit

Someday, the baby grows so big that you can no longer hold it. It wants to go places, and you are no longer its main friend. So, you get external management or get your baby acquired. That is the teary part of your entrepreneurial day, but you also know that you have succeeded. You know how many people long to have a kid who grew so perfect and now gets a life of its own.

The pride

Now, some kids grow to join the Harvard and others can just get to Somerville community college. But, for the mom, regardless of these outcomes, she is always proud of her baby. It might be ugly, unpopular, and useless, but for the founder, it is still the most beautiful thing in the world.

Epilogue:

Whenever good news of the baby comes on the TV, you show it proudly to your friends - that is my baby. If the news is bad, you just make angry calls screaming of bad company. Whoever owns the company, you still maintain your soft-corner for the baby and constantly keep track of what is going in. If really needed, you are also ready to step back in to mentor the baby.

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A startup founder for the past three years with mixed successes, I was able to run my family with my meager ventures, but I'm nowhere near the successful entrepreneurs you read about in the media. Someday, I hope to be that one. In any case, this is the most painful journey I have ever enjoyed.